


Hey, Jack

by gyromitra



Series: The Bureau [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Horror, Inspired by B.P.R.D. / Hellboy, M/M, Panic Attacks, Rape/Non-con Elements, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 06:14:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23466715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyromitra/pseuds/gyromitra
Summary: Saint Francine whom the Angels of the Fields adore.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: The Bureau [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1266446
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags (as usual, tagged for the whole intended text). The tags might be not corresponding with the earlier parts of the story as a whole but, well, some narrations are unreliable. Additional explanation about Moira at the end.

_**Before** _

She stands on the side of the road, her face turned towards the sky and the stars therein – the summer dress made with too much cloth hangs loosely around her frame and her hair bound and covered with a plain scarf.

He knows it is not the proper way, but tomorrow she is of age, and his father and hers had made the arrangement months prior, so Tommy approaches her. She gazes over her shoulder as his footsteps on the dried grass give him away, and questions him with her eyes.

She isn't the prettiest one – nor the friendliest – but the high cut of her cheekbones and the resolute jut of her chin, the way her eyes narrow and lips purse when she finds something disagreeable, or how her hair shines in the sunlight in those rare moments she lets it flow free down her back – he loves it.

So he tells her of their marriage to be and what fine wife she will make – the children she'll bear – and that with her blessings he will be the next Holy Father, because how could it not happen with the Saint at his side?

She leans into his touch, coy and meek as any woman should be, but then, she escapes from his embrace and leaves Tommy with the scarf in his grasp as her locks spill down her shoulders in a cascade of moonlit silver. She glances back at him, her lips parted and lashes lowered, the dress swirling around her legs, calls him to herself.

Knowing no fear, he follows her deeper and deeper into the swaying stalks – for Saint Francine whom the Angels of the Fields adore is promised to be his.

* * *

_**Now** _

His eyes flick to the two unassuming stones framing the dirt path as the deadly nails bite into the skin of his neck, the points digging into the flesh layered over the arteries, such big hands on a woman to wrap her fingers around his throat. But it is only a glamour Jack can see through, and not everything can be hidden by it. The rifle is wedged sideways between them as she moves closer, curious, head leaning in almost for a kiss, her breath brushing against his lips.

"Ah," Moira chuckles, inhaling deep.

"Where did you send him?"

"I was thinking of squashing you like the inconsequential mortal you are, but this is far too useful when Reaper realizes."

"The fuck?" He barely restrains himself from head-butting her, the worry gnawing at his ribs from inside.

Keep her talking. Keep her wasting her time. Get her to lower her guard.

"Four beats of Hecate's heart and your shirt will be rightfully mine to wash in cold spring, again."

"Tell me something I don't fucking know," Jack seethes, the grip he has on the rifle whitening his knuckles.

"How does it feel, to waste away slowly in futility?"

"You tell me, banshee, the world doesn't need your kind anymore."

"Ah, ah, ah," the points of the nails sink further, "this world is ending, and the ones that had been lost are waiting to feast on its carcass, all of them, all thanks to him, and your death will deliver, I see it now."

"My death," Jack grits his teeth, "changes nothing."

"Doesn't it?" She laughs. "May be so, but then, how unimportant you are that with or without you, the outcome remains the same. Reaper will come to us, as will the Herald. Now," her hand loosens, barely, "a parting gift for you."

Before he can react Moira moves away, and not a second later he's fighting against something clinging to his face, his hands become entangled in it, it feels like he's suffocating... Cloth. A bunch of cloth. Jack tears it off and throws it to the ground.

White and red cotton glares at him from the ground - chequered pattern, oddly familiar, broken up by folds and rips - his stomach and heart turn inside out and burning cold drips down his spine, this time he can't breathe as his throat seizes up.

It's a dress. A summer dress.

There's no mistaking it now and Jack scrambles back to get away from it in a fit of blind panic. His heel catches on a root sending him tumbling – he scratches the ball of his palm trying to cushion the fall, the butt of the rifle juggled up by his knee hits him in the face. His feet scramble for any purchase as he pushes himself back further from the swath of fabric – until his shoulders and head collide with the crumbling stone wall and Jack freezes, gulping the air, his vision tunneling and dark shapes dancing at the edges of it.

Why would she have it, why... Why would she leave it here?

The half-choked sob Jack doesn't bother to try hold back rips his throat with its thorns while his nails dig into the pads of his palms. And then he laughs, strained and high-pitched.

His sister's dress.

Of course – of course, she would have it – it's the dress she died in, washed clean of the blood, and that fact gives him some twisted vindication as the laugh passes into small sobs that shake his whole frame. Clenching his eyes shut, Jack slowly works his breath under control.

He's successful for a moment – strained muscles hurting already, or hurting because of the exertion needed to force them to move against his body's wishes – until he remembers Gabriel and pulls himself upright, leaning on the wall. A loose stone slips from under his hand. Before he regains his balance, his arm slides over the hard edge, the elbow hitting the rock – the angry pain of the still mending wound drowned out by the incoming wave of hot and cold having him suddenly stagger.

Jack launches himself forward a few bumbling steps.

And it's as much as it takes him to realize he's gone from one extreme to the other: hyperventilating now, already lightheaded, with dryness in his mouth and on the tongue. He gives the dress a wide berth; the darkness at the edge of his vision is replaced by unnatural clarity.

The contours of the stones between which Moira threw Gabriel with her voice almost shine with white static; the gate is ancient, and he expected it to be dormant, or destroyed, but the fact Gabriel went through it and didn't land on the other side proved otherwise.

The shimmer in the space contained within them is barely perceptible: not of the light but of the air wavering over the ground in the zenith of the summer sun. Jack reaches out and immediately draws his hand back as if burned because he sees what is on the other side. The only place and time he can't – will not – follow after Gabriel.

The stalks of corn sway under the starlit sky, slow and stately; the fireflies dance their courtships.

And, somewhere there in the fields, his sister, wearing a white and red chequered summer dress, is dying.

Jack collapses with arms wrapped around his stomach clenching with white-hot stabs of pain, with forehead pressed into his knees, and screams to drown out the thumping in his ears but it persists and each beat of his heart he hears in his veins brings forth a wave of nausea. The crushing weightlessness threads itself into his body, its tendrils infiltrate all of his senses until there is nothing left but static and darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please mind the tags, I'm dead serious about it.

At first, Gabriel thinks he's gone blind - falling - hitting something yielding with tensile pliancy, and falling again, trying to grab anything to get a hold, and catching the same strange growth cushioning his descent - legs entangled and losing the footing. Disorienting crisp rustling and cracking coming from under him and from the sides as he lets go; the wetness on his fingers panic-inducing when his mind supplies him with an explanation of what it could be, what it probably is – the claws sinking into flesh and drawing blood.

When he stops with his arms lying lax on the ground against his sides, Gabriel stares at the meandering point of yellow light flying above him as the moon and the stars bleed into the sky.

It's night – somehow it's night – and the single firefly is joined by more.

The stars are all wrong.

He doesn't care how the bitch sent him to the other side of the world, Jack's left alone there to deal with her – he can stand his ground well on his own but Gabriel's far more intimate with what Moira is capable of, all the little mind games she’s so fond of.

Climbing to his feet, he searches the coat's pockets for the phone, the new one Jack lifted off Lena and switched the battery with the one from his own mobile – the same model – only saying his own doesn't have a tracker.

Creaking and rustling, cornstalks tower above his head, swaying as Gabriel pushes through trying to retrace his trajectory but there's only the place he had landed in the field.

The phone's screen lights up and he dials the number. It drops immediately. No signal, again. So much for satellite routing. He's willing to sell his soul once again to the Bureau just to get anyone to Jack in time, but every redial is met with the same: no cellular, no answer from the satellite grid.

Moonlight, dim before, seems to bloom, and leaves cast dancing shadows. The air smells of sweet greenery and rich fertile earth, underneath it hides plant decay and a note of different sweetness, sickly and nauseating, reminds Gabriel of the wild beehive full of honey nestled in a rotting carcass stuffed into the tree's trunk. He would gladly trade the current nightmares for the ones the grisly apiary and its beekeeper gave him, he thinks, lighting his way with the phone's screen. But that's neither here nor...

Gabriel stops in place, the rustling to his side continues for a moment longer.

Something's shadowing him, bulky – with inertia behind it to prove it – the single step he takes is followed immediately. He turns to his left.

The light catches a pair of eyes set wide apart between the stalks, red, glowing, he's not so sure it's the reflection from the phone’s screen he's seeing. The creature growls, low, the sound reverberating in his chest and in the soil below his feet, and then lunges, but away from him. Gabriel turns, following its path through the corn with his head and the phone. It's circling him. It's hunting.

Another creature joins in.

He's a sitting duck. Fuck. Didn't even check for the rifle, if he had dropped it here, or before, too focused on getting in contact with anyone. Slowly, Gabriel backs away. He's not likely to find the spot, but it's better than just waiting for the both of them to pounce. They still keep their distance, growling intermittently, freely giving away their position, but that's not going to help...

The creatures take off in the same direction with no warning, away from him, towards the new sound: a woman screaming, and then, suddenly, no more.

Gabriel starts in the opposite direction but falters, clenching his teeth. She's probably dead. And maybe, she isn't. He should just walk away. Get out of the field. Find help. Jack's left with Moira.

"Fuck," he spits, turning back to follow the creatures.

He's going to regret this.

Too little light to run but he tries: one arm shielding his face, soles sinking into the soft earth, legs catching on the stalks. Once or twice he almost loses his balance. There's more of them, he vaguely recognizes, all converging at one point, passing by. Not bothering with him. Easier pickings out there?

The moment when there's nothing before him takes him by surprise and Gabriel stumbles, kicking something, shining the light on it – a part of a ribcage, remnants of a broken sternum attached, all distinctively human. More bones littering the clearing, most of them animal, patches of dirt and broken, flattened corn. A feeding space?

His first instinct when he sees the pair on the ground still oblivious to his presence is to turn away and grant them some privacy. Was that her screaming earlier?

The tousled hair splayed on the dirt, so light-colored it looks almost white under the moon.

He has to warn them, together they have a higher chance against whatever's in the field, moves forward. And freezes.

Not a woman, a girl.

Head turned away, eyes shut. Teeth gritted between her curled lips, something dark – blood – on her face. The palms on the man's shoulders are not holding him. They're pushing away.

In a blink, Gabriel's on him, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, not caring about the damage he might inflict. A flash of bewilderment flickers on his face before Gabriel's fist sends him back several stumbling steps – tripping over his falling pants – the second punch impacts immediately after, toppling him to the ground like a log by the border of the clearing. Two kicks to the ribs and one to the face, each met with a resounding and satisfying wet crack, not getting up anytime soon, not on his own. Gabriel looks to the wall of corn, his chest heaving. They can have him, for all he cares.

The girl, she's the priority now. He briefly wonders before turning around if she had seen all this, if she's going to see him as another aggressor.

She's sitting awkwardly, face shrouded with hair, legs still apart, hands futilely trying to cover her chest with the torn fabric – movements stilted and sluggish. Before thinking, Gabriel crosses the distance, shedding the coat to put it around her frame – it occurs to him he should have waited with it but she doesn't react to it, doesn't acknowledge his presence – shock, he'd seen enough of it in his life to recognize the symptoms.

But he has to get her out of here, into a safe place.

Tentatively, he touches her shoulder, and this time there's a reaction, a rigid shift of her body to escape from the invading touch, hair falling away from her face, eyes on him but not really seeing, unfocused.

Gabriel feels cold washing over his skin. The words said on the train, the self-depreciative tone fading into a whisper echoing in his memory, the stillness in the body behind him, it all hits in the same moment like a punch to the gut.

And it's impossible.

_'I can't fight back because I'm fifteen.'_

Not a question of where he is but of when he is – and it's still impossible.

He looks back, in time to see several long malformed hands tipped with curved claws hooked into the clothes drag the man – Tommy? – into the shaking corn.

He wishes the creatures, the monsters in the corn, not to hurry with their meal. When the howling starts, rises and falls, and rises again over the field, doesn't stop for longer than needed to draw a breath, he knows they won't.

He has to... He doesn't know what, not under the weight of those eyes looking through him. With cautious gentleness, he puts his palm under the trembling chin, there's only a minute flinch now but it scares him nonetheless.

"Hey," Gabriel speaks softly, his throat burning. "Hey, Jack."

Blue eyes focus on his face.

And Jack collapses on himself, curling up, shaking, almost folds in half, knees drawn to his chest, and Gabriel can only put his arms around him thinking how small he is right now. Ten years from now on, he's going to sit hunched over together with Lena, whispering, both stealing glances at him while Gabriel introduces himself to a room full of agents.

Right about now he himself is signing up, giving up his individuality for the comforts of rigid structure and having not to worry about the immediate future, leaving behind the weirdness of his childhood – only to be unceremoniously thrust back into it with no warning, all a point on the path leading him to the very same room.

There's a sound like a hiccup broken up into fragments, repeating on and on, a face thrust into his chest, spasming fingers trying to get a grip on his shirt – like a chick that had fallen out of the safety of the nest and will either fly or die, Gabriel thinks.

And Jack will fly. God, will he fly.

"It's going to be okay," Gabriel whispers, palm traveling slow up and down the quivering back. "You're going to be okay, I promise."

Just what the fuck is he supposed to do now? His first instinct is to spirit Jack away from this fucking place where things will get only worse before they get better, but that's not how this fucking story goes, is it? He's out of options other than letting it unfold as it had before.

They'll both manage.

Gabriel slips into humming, the melodies of lullabies he remembers coming back to him; rocking slightly until the trembling subsides and fingertips move across his face as if mapping it into memory by touch only – and maybe it's exactly what’s happening as Jack curls into his chest with his eyes closed. He can't say how much time has passed when the songs he knows run out and the moon dives below the rustling corn.

Different voices join, coming from afar, almost drowned out by the unending screaming from behind. Slowly, Gabriel gets up and swaddles Jack in his coat. The leather drags on the ground, the steps uneven – a missing shoe, Jack must've lost it while running – the fingers lingering in his palm leave emptiness behind.

"Go," Gabriel tells him. This isn't how this story goes, but it's close enough. "Go and don't look back. Never look back."

He stands there and waits, long after the curtain of stalks closes behind Jack. He will find his own way back, even if it takes him twenty goddamn fucking years.

**Author's Note:**

> For clarification, Moira is a banshee, the kind that washes the shirts/clothes of those dead, or to die.


End file.
